Dialect on African American Literature in Slavery Time - Essay Sample

Introduction

African American literature is dated back to African slaves' earliest arrival in the New World in 1639 when they formulated a dialect and tradition of their own. The African American literature began during the 18th and 19th centuries with authors like poet Phillis Wheatley and prominent storyteller Frederick Douglass and reached its high point during Harlem Renaissance. African Americans were regarded as inferior compared to the white race and were, therefore, not allowed to appreciate the same freedoms as the white folks. As slaves, African Americans were not permitted to read and write. Incapable of reading and writing, the slaves turned to verbal languages as a way of communicating which gave rise to the dialect civilizations. The paper examines the dialect of African American literature in slavery time.

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According to Hiro (2015), the slaves had been captured from various places across Africa, therefore, did not converse in the same dialect. Upon reaching America, they forged their own dialect which allowed them to connect. This language was referred to as Creole. The African American slaves used stories, songs, and poetries to communicate. Therefore dialect tradition came to be known as oral practices of African Americans traditions that were mainly not inscribed down. Dialect custom was exceptional in that it did not comply with the rubrics of syntax and high pattern. The dialect expression also took a call-response style. A call-response style is a system of language where one individual leads other people in a poem or song. The dialect tradition also possessed a rhythm that sounded like a beating dance style thereby granting the song or sonnet a tune. The topic of the dialect expressions was mainly about the predicaments and difficulties that African Americans faced as slaves.

According to Schneider (2015), dialect expressions offered the slaves with a feeling of hope for a free future. There are different forms of dialect traditions that the African Americans utilized. They comprise ballads, church melodies, blues, the spirituals, narratives, discourses, and jazz. Spirituals are mystical songs that the African American slaves formulated during their time in servitude. Spirituals are primarily mystical and precisely sing about the power of the Almighty God. The spirituals mostly focused on giving slaves hope for better times. The African Americans sang mystical tunes through the day at their workstations, farms, and plantations. The melodies offered the blacks with some escape from realism. In New England, the slaves who were close to their masters' families exchanged narratives and experiences with the audience. The slaves described their lives before slavery in Africa and their everyday activities. The depicted the suffering felt by husbands and wives separated from each other and also the separations of brothers and sisters and children from parents. Those narratives suggest the kind of insight on the issues of slavery.

Blues was an alternative form of dialect practice that African Americans used to narrate tales. The capability to use stories to tell stories was a feature comparable in the spirituals and the blues. The slaves narrated accounts of their suffering and their anticipation for freedom through spirituals and blues. Majority of the blues were trapped in slavery and were reflective of the blacks struggles to prosper in life. Blues music originated mostly from past dialect forms like work songs and spirituals. When singing the spirituals, African Americans were allowed to liberally express themselves in a way that suited their delineation of religiousness (Mvuyekure, 2006). The slaves were able to scream, hymn and express themselves in tongues. The spirituals were also formulated as a cry of the African Americans. Vices like oppression, pain in captivity and the desire for liberty facilitated the development of spirituals. The blues and spirituals had different meanings. The spirituals envisioned a life of triumph while the blues envisioned a more human and accurate classification of optimism and accomplishment (Gates and Smith, 2014).

According to Miller (2016), the African American dialect custom updates African American literature of slavery and liberty. Key topics during this time were a commitment to human dignity and resistance to tyranny. During this period, African American authors questioned the institution of slavery as they became gradually familiar with the teachings of the Holy Bible. These authors compared literacy with liberty. With their increasing literacy, African American writers appealed to the conventional Christian principle of a common group of humankind as an approach to challenging the ethics of slavery. The dialect in African American literature included linguistic elements from the African language, Black English, pidgin English, patois, creole add other minor dialects. The dialect also contained oral epics, the dozens, folktales, call and response, improvisational practices, line dances, ring shouts, sermons, and ciphers. Music genres also included gospel, hip-hop, jazz, and others.

Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784) was the first African American to get her book published and the first to win a global award as an author. Wheatly wrote poems in her adopted English language. Most African American literature offers multiple preliminary pamphlets to validate the work as the creation of an African American slave. Fredrick Douglas is considered the embodiment of the African American slave account. Slave chronicle was a subcategory of African American fiction which started in the mid-19th century. During that time, the conflict over slavery resulted in emotional fiction on the views on the issue. Writings like 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' (1852) characterized the abolition of slavery perspectives, while the commonly known Anti-Tom works by white, southern authors like William Gilmore Simms epitomized the pro-slavery perspective. To illustrate the real picture of slavery, former slaves like Frederick Douglas and Harriet Jacobs authored slave narratives, which were incorporated in the African American literature (Huber, 2018).

Conclusion

Conclusively, the dialect is a tradition foundationally held by Africanisms that changed through geographical priorities in the American society. The African American dialect tradition captures the modernity and postmodernity movements of black art, identity, culture, and politics. During the slavery period, African American literature represented the divided self of Africans who were forced into slavery. Because of the problems of racism, numerous African American writings were not approved as real works like Harriet Jacobs and Frederick Douglas. Through sermons, letters, poetry and slave stories, African American literature during slavery was a way of breaking the bonds of slavery. African American dialect traditions survived during slavery due to the modes of communication and the existing black folklore societies. The original form of African American dialect tradition was not initially created for public transmission. They were in-group forms of articulating the legalities of their everyday lives in slavery. The dialects usually entailed coded communications of withstanding the pains of slavery. The spirituals, folktales, sermons, and songs developed in the Southern slave plantation in the 19th century.

References

Hiro, M. (2015). Black Enough? African American Writers and the Vernacular Tradition. English Faculty Publications and Presentations. 7.

Huber, S. (2018). African American Vernacular English as a Literary Dialect: A Linguistic Approach. Herbert Utz Verlag.

Gates, H. L., & Smith, V. (2014). The Norton Anthology of African American literature. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.

Miller, Q.D. (2016). The Routledge Introduction to African American Literature. Routledge.

Mvuyekure, P.D. (2006). Black Vernacular Traditions in African American Literature and Culture. South Atlantic Review.71. 4. pp.99-108.

Schneider, E. W. (2015). Documenting the history of African American Vernacular English. The Oxford handbook of African American language, 125